


The Golden Smith

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Abuse, Crafts, Dragons, Dwarves, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Folklore, Huntsman - Freeform, Miscarriage, Truth Will Set You Free, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Rapunzel is a dwarven smith, the prince is a huntsman and the witch is much more than she seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Golden Smith

It was a painful truth that dwarven pregnancies were two things: rare and risky. A couple could try for a hundred years or more and have nothing to show for it but their pain and sorrow. Often a wife would say nothing to her husband unless she lasted three moons or even more as the attempts went on, mourning in silence if a stillborn babe was born with nothing but an engraved stone bearing a name to remember what could have been. In one little town an older dwarf couple – pushing two hundred, growing close to the twilight century – greeted the news that they were expecting once more with a resigned trepidation. She had returned three little bodies to the stone with others bleeding away before she ever felt them move within her. Her husband stayed a typical dwarf throughout, supportive, loving but saying little. Dwarves always spoke plainly to one another in all areas other than this so when the women came to visit with her, he went to the pub to talk with other men, none of them bothering to try to blame strong ales or pipe smoke for the tears in their eyes. Their race was slowly dying, too many old and feeble, too few stout and young. Four moons came. Then five. His dreams were dark, hers too. Blood and agony, not just a babe lost but a wife too but somehow five moons became six and on the cusp of the seventh they dared to have some hope. Surely they might have their longed for child.  
  
Before dawn on the first day of the seventh moon the wife was seized by cramps, vicious and intense. Her stoic nature from having lived this too many times failed her, tears staining her cheeks, great heaving sobs that left her shaking. Her husband put her to bed, called for a neighbour so his wife might not be alone; it damn near broke his old heart when he had to leave the house even if he knew he had no choice. Marching off down the road to a doctor who knew well the troubles of dwarven pregnancies but he could offer nothing more than going to check of her and help when and where he was needed. Running a hand down his beard, he leaned against the side of the building, sweating as if he were in the forge working alongside his fellows. He would have to go back. Return to his wife with nothing and watch as she bled and strained all for nothing. She would cry at the start but it would fade into silence, a silence that cut more deeply than her tears ever could for a reason he could never understand. Heading off, he was stopped by the doctor calling after him.  
  
“I hesitate to speak of this for it would be remiss of me to provide what could prove to be false hope,” the doctor began, smoothing out his tunic.  
  
“By the beards of my ancestors man _tell me_!”  
  
“There is a plant some have sworn by in a time of great crisis that grows in the garden of the hedge witch but be warned – do not steal it, do not even _think_ of stealing it – she drives a hard bargain for it.”  
  
“Those you have spoken to,” he forced himself to ask the question, to not run off immediately, “did they say if it worked?”  
  
“Yes,” the doctor replied in an explosive burst of breath. “They call it rapunzel.”  
  
It was all he needed to spur him into a sprint, racing to the edge of their little town where the hedge witch lived, a place the dwarves treated with less fear than the elves and men. Magic did not work on dwarves as it did on the other races, true fire would burn them, ice would freeze them but still they had less to fear from it than elves or men. He had traded with her before but that had been objects, jewels, trinkets in exchange for coin or tonics, salves and potions. Indeed the dwarves had been those who had protested when elves and men had wished to drive her out of the town, proclaiming her to be dangerous, pointing out that they had her magic that she traded and that she had never inflicted harm upon any of them. At times it was not always an easy truce but they were a mining town with the word of the dwarves carrying the greatest weight and so the witch had stayed with her garden of strange plants that she was tending to quietly when he reached her home, breathless and panting.  
  
“Is there a commotion?” She asked, rising from her spot on her knees pulling weeds, wiping at her brow. “Catch your breath ser dwarf and I shall assist as I can.”  
  
“I-I need,” chest heaving like a bellows he tried to gasp the words out. “I was told you might have a plant. It is my wife you see.”  
  
“It is always so sad to see the plight of your people when you have been nothing but good to me,” the witch murmured, stepping closer to place a comforting hand upon his shoulder, a hand bearing rings that she had bought from the dwarves. To his ears she sounded sincere, sad even. But witches were adept at working their magic and she knew how to put on an act when there was something for her to get out of the bargain. “Tell me what it is you need ser dwarf and I will do all that I can.”  
  
“Rapunzel? Is that it?” He panicked for a moment for he could have misheard in all his anxiety.  
  
“Rapunzel? Why yes that would certainly work if your wife is close to her time and in great pain. Guarantees a healthy babe but alas it is so very, _very_ rare, hard to cultivate, requiring much nurture to grow. A most delicate plant.” With a sigh she turned from him, stepping through carefully laid plots of plants he had never been able to name, indeed he could scarcely tell them apart but many dwarves were that way with growing things. Give them rock and stone, they knew that. Leave plants for elves and men. “As it so happens,” she continued with her words coming slowly, drawing it all out as long as she could, “I happen to have some healthy rapunzel that will aid your wife.”  
  
“I will give anything for it.” He knew he should heed the words of the doctor but this was his wife and unborn child, he might have a chance to have a wife and son or daughter to teach their traditions and crafts to.  
  
“I cannot name a price on this day, it would not be right of me.” Something nagged at him as she said the words but time was short and he had been gone too long already – what would a man not give for the safety of his family? The plant was pressed into his palm, his fingers feeling too thick and clumsy to handle something so easily crushed.  “Wash it then have her eat it all. Leaf, stem, root.”  
  
“Wash it, eat it all.”  
  
“I will pray for you. And collect on our deal at a later date. Now go! Time grows short and this plant withers quicker than you would believe.”  
  
Off he ran, the witch smiling a cruel sliver of a smile, full of poisonous intent. She knew what she wanted and she would not have to wait long – best to pack away her things in advance. For as much as the dwarves supported her, she was still greedy and believed she should be simply given all that she wanted, gold, jewellery, gems and stones instead of having to barter or pay for them. She was a witch with a power that made men tremble. She had plans for this bargain. Gathering up her skirts she moved indoors to sort through her belongings ready for a long journey.

* * *

  
  
His wife ate the strange plant, forcing it down, leaf, stem and root despite the bitter taste that made her retch. The neighbour and doctor both left to give them privacy as the dwarf sat on the bed beside her, arm around her shoulders as they waited together until he felt her relax beneath his touch, the tension leaving her back and shoulders. She made an 'oh' of surprise, rubbing her swollen belly tentatively with one hand as the vicious cramps and tightness slowly disappeared until all she could feel was the movement of her child, still so full of life! Tears came again but they were tears of joy, of relief. His hand joined hers over her belly and they dared to hope that they would soon suffer sleepless nights gladly with a little boy or girl cradled in their arms.  
  
“So, husband,” she said shakily, brushing away the last of her tears, “shall we think of names?”

* * *

  
  
It was a long labour in the end as all dwarf labours tended to be with women aiding in the birth for a doctor could not be trusted with something so delicate as a newborn dwarf. The men all waited outside with pipes and tankards with backslapping becoming increasingly more violent until all was silenced by the squalling cry of a newborn. Ushered on by his friends, he walked with trembling legs to his bedroom where the women opened the door, beaming and smiling in unrestrained joy. The room smelled of blood but his wife lay in bed, pale and smiling with a babe at her breast and for a moment he feared he would faint before he was given one last shove as the door shut with the quietest click.  
  
“Stones of the old ones,” he croaked out, hoarse and on the verge of tears.  
  
“No such talk in front of your daughter,” his wife replied in a voice made raw from birthing pains as she patted the bed beside her. “Say hello to her.”  
  
He had strong hands. Hands that could make weapons. Hands that had wielded weapons in war. But he made the most delicate jewellery, handled tiny things that could shatter with just the smallest amount of pressure. So when he had at last taken a seat he took her from his wife's arms, beaming down at that red, wrinkled face with its bow-shaped lips and bright blue eyes. A tiny fist flailed free and he caught it so he could bestow a kiss upon it as the tears came, soaking his beard.  
  
“My tiny darling you are more precious than all the jewels beneath the earth.”  
  
Both man and wife jumped at the sudden crack of thunder that echoed through their bedroom, blinding light and smoke before a disembodied voice addressed them.  
  
“And like all precious jewels she will be coveted.”  
  
“Who are you!” The dwarf bellowed even as he handed his daughter over to his wife who immediately began to shush the child when she screamed. “Show yourself!”  
  
“Do you remember our deal?”  
  
“What is it you want witch?”  
  
“Witch you call me? Witch when you owe me that which you hold in your arms.” He followed the gaze of the witch to where his wife swaddled their daughter and clutched her tight. “It does not matter for when I leave we shall not clap eyes on one another again for your debt will be repaid and we shall be at a balance once again. Hand over the child.”  
  
His blood ran cold but nevertheless he reached for the closest axe, wondering where the others were for dwarves defended one another to the very death and they jealously guarded what few young they had. “You will not have her. Take anything else instead.”  
  
“I am allowed to choose,” and she sounded strangely petulant as she said it, greedy and demanding, “and this is my price. Your axe will do nothing and your companions will only be able to come when I am long gone. Hand her over.”  
  
“No,” his wife growled, trying to rise so she might get away and he knew then that he would lay down his life in this moment. “You will not have my first-born. My daughter.”  
  
Cold crept into the room. It began in his feet then climbed up his legs, his stomach and chest and up his arms to his fingers where the axe dropped to the floor with a clatter that had his daughter howling in fear. He tried to shout but his tongue froze to the roof of his mouth. Straining his eyes he was afforded the awful sight of his wife frozen as she tried to rise from the bed and no amount of fighting would get his arms or legs to move as the witch advanced with eyes for nothing and no one save their child. He watched as she was plucked from his wife's arms before she and the witch were gone in a puff of smoke.  
  
The spell broke the instant she left. A howl of rage and anguish left him as he fell to the floor, he and his wife more broken than they had ever been in the past.  


* * *

  
  
Shadowed by the mountains the dwarves mined their ores and gems there had once been a kingdom before the king had grown ill and divided up his kingdom to lords who squabbled over who deserved what share. The kingdom had fallen and burned; that was a story she told many times in years to come when the dwarf girl asked questions of where they were. One watchtower remained and that was where the witch took her stolen child, the tiny dwarf girl her plant had helped to bring into the world, her enchantment woven around the plant to allow for her profit. She had learned much of the dwarves of old, of how smithing was innate to them, the knowledge of ancestors distilled in their blood in the one feat of magic the dwarves had summoned up to ensure that no matter how far they were separated that they would always survive, always prosper. A tower was far from ideal when it came down to it but she had to keep her charge safe and to herself creating all that the witch could want. So a tower it was, a forge within, anvil, grinding stone, work bench. All that a young dwarf would need to craft.  
  
It was not love that had her caring for the child. A happy child grew well. A happy child would be biddable, strong and inclined to listen to her 'mother'. She saw it as guarding an investment and for years she appeared and disappeared, teaching Rapunzel all that she could and the young dwarf grew to love her. The witch had never found anything attractive in her life save power but dwarves she found squat, brutish, too square and blunt in all ways but this one had a certain beauty. The dwarven features were especially strong but the plant and spell had gifted her unnaturally golden locks that glowed in the sunlight when it streamed in through the high windows. It was this hair that she sought, enchanted as it was. When she chanted and wrapped base metals and normal gravel in it they became jewels until it was removed from the hair. It was proof of her power and what she could do but it did not last. It vexed her to the point that Rapunzel hid from her behind the forge, weeping and clutching at the jewellery she had made as a gift from what little her mother brought her.  
  
Sometimes, when she had realised just how very different, Rapunzel asked questions about how she came to be here, why she was never allowed outside and why they lived so very high and not on the ground or beneath the stone.  
  
“Because the world does not want us to be together my darling,” she said whenever it came up, holding that little body on her lap, stroking thick golden locks, “you look as you are for your father was a dwarf but I am your mother. They said I should not be allowed to raise you. They would take you away from me and I would never see you again. I could not bear that.” Each time Rapunzel clutched her close and the next day hurried to show her some new thing she had learned to craft, a beaming smile on her face. Sometimes the witch would admit that she did indeed feel pride at the accomplishments of the girl – there was such potential there and if she could harness that hair then in years to come she would be rich indeed.  
  
First she tried to cut the hair, just a small section. To her dismay it lost the gleaming shine, turning to the colour of old straw and did not grow long again. For a long, horrible moment she thought that she had been foiled somehow. Pacing the tower, she ranted and raved under her breath to the steady beat of a hammer clattering some lump of metal, the girl oblivious to what was going on only a few rooms away. That was when she saw it. The soft brush she used that still glimmered. She grabbed at it, pulling free several long strands of hair that she wrapped around a small stone, chanting under breath. Light flared in her palm and instead of a lump of stone she held a nugget of gold.  
  
A plan began to brew in her mind as she swept through into the main room, watching the stocky little Rapunzel hammering away, shaping something beautiful. Such skill in her very blood – she could wait now, wait for this to blossom into a true talent and in an uncharacteristic display of unprompted affection she bent down to kiss Rapunzel’s temple.  
  
“Such a good girl, mother loves you so very dearly.”  
  
“I love you too mother, so very much.”

* * *

  
  
Years passed and soon they had beautiful things to sell. Or rather the witch did. Rapunzel now twenty remained stuck in the tower, peering over the edge of the windowsill down to the world below. Her mother's small garden flourished with the things she needed for her magic and she wished dearly to go down there. She had never been outside. This tower, as much as she loved it somehow did not feel like home. There was not enough beneath her feet to the point where increasingly she felt as though she were walking on air but it was not something she could voice to her mother who did all this to keep her safe. They were looking for her, her mother said. Dwarves would seek to harm and separate them. Men and elves might murder her mother simply for having magic. All she knew of the world came from her mother and her books, the rest came from her blood, the traits of dwarves incredibly strong as no other dwarf had taught her to do what she could.  
  
No other dwarf had enchantments to turn plain, simple materials into precious metals and gems. Somehow it felt like cheating. She was not working with the true objects. Once she had voiced that to her mother. Tentatively. Asking if they might go find a place where she would be accepted. Or that perhaps she could go mine for materials to make them and her mother could sell her own enchantments. To say it had not gone well would be a horrific understatement. With a sigh she shook her head, stretching sore muscles as she sighed out at the mountain wondering what lay beyond it even though her mother always said it was nothing good, a lawless land with Rapunzel's father the only good spot and he had been killed when his love of a human woman had been discovered as her belly had swollen with child.  
  
“They will know you are not fully dwarven. They will be able to tell and they will steal you away and lock you up so you never see the life of day, working you to death.” That was what mother had said as she had plucked hairs out by the root to wrap around her finished works and around other objects so she had blocks of gold or silver or platinum or piles of rubies and sapphires to work with. Even though she had had her hair plucked for years as it always grew back, the pain of it did not lessen but tears had never brought comfort or solace or even respite so she had learned long ago to simply grit her teeth and endure whatever her mother wished. Resentment had been building a long time and though she envied her mother her long trips away to gather supplies or do whatever it was that she did she also treasured the moments of quiet where it was only her and her tools. Strange that she could feel so alone though, so lost when this was the only world she had ever known, her mother her sole companion. There was a tug somewhere deep within her that made her yearn for places she had never known, caverns buried in the roots of mountains that were lined with ore, fanning out like the veins in her wrists, the lifeblood of the world. How she longed to walk such places with narrow passages and great rifts in place of walls, fingers abraded by sharp rocks and granite. To sling a pickaxe over her shoulder to mine away so she might find just what it was she needed to make something truly wondrous.  
  
With a sigh she turned from the window to stoke the forge and begin her work again, unaware of someone below who had found himself quite lost indeed and very much befuddled and annoyed. As the forge heated she went to the workbench where she had been hammering a shield inlaid with what would be rubies no doubt, humming and tapping her foot before she began to sing. She never sang in the presence of her mother for the songs were not songs her mother had taught nor had they come from any book. They were songs from dreams that seemed more like long forgotten memories than anything else and they were hers and hers alone, at least in this place.  
  
“ _We came from beneath the mountains-ho  
Scaling rock and shale and granite cold  
Bearing iron, steel and coal  
We brought forth great jewels and ores  
And flooded the world above with gold!_ ”  
  
Below her tower the young man who was still lost and confused, stumbling through the witch's garden peered up at the tower, even more confused at the sudden clanging and singing of what sounded very much like dwarven shanties and work songs. Why was there a forge in a tower? And why was there a tower where nothing had been built for so many years? Drawing in a breath to call out for aid, he reconsidered when the birds suddenly startled, heralding the arrival of someone or something. Quickly he rattled the sword belted at his waist before taking cover behind a tree, peering around to get a look at whoever it was. Regrettably the singing had stopped as suddenly as it had begun leaving only the hammering to echo faintly, covering up the sound of whatever approached until it was close enough for him to see. A woman, an older woman, in a rich cloak with ermine lining the hood, a pack slung across her shoulders and a basket hanging at the crook of her arm. In any other circumstance having been raised to be an upstanding and chivalrous young man he would have gone to assist her but when one was alone, lost and faced with a good few odd things, it was better to stay silent and observe.  
  
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair.”  
  
What curious words. Perhaps the woman was addled – it would explain her being out here standing before a tower that had dwarven shanties and clanging and hammering coming out of it. From a window he had been unable to see suddenly there came a cascade of something that shimmered, catching the light strongly enough to blind him momentarily. By the time he could see again he was sure he was imagining things for the woman who had called out had a hold of what could not be a rope or ladder, wrapping it around herself as she began to rise slowly, up and up and up. His legs gave up and he slid to the ground, back against the tree he had been hiding behind.  
  
“What's going on here?” He asked aloud, mostly to himself but a passing rabbit paused, tipped its head in what could be thought of as consideration before it hopped off, leaving the young man to his questions.

* * *

  
  
He made camp not too far from the tower, hunting what game he could to supplement his supplies as he watched each day as the woman left and the singing and hammering began until close to nightfall she returned, almost every night without fail. She took things with her each time she left or had them lowered down by what more and more strongly resembled hair each time he saw. The baskets she took were filled with swords and shields or beautifully made jewellery which made sense when the noises and dwarven songs were carrying on but those sounds in a tower in the middle of nowhere still made no sense whatsoever. When she left five days after his first sighting with a considerable amount of items, he seized his chance. Taking only his sword and a dagger, he stashed the rest of his supplies and summoned his courage, striding to beneath the window where the woman had called out. He cleared his throat, cupped his hands to his mouth and called out those same words.  
  
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair.”  
  
And just like that down cascaded what truly was hair, impossibly long and thick, so very soft to the touch as he gripped it clumsily, feeling himself start to rise to a dizzying height. It was best not to look down so he doggedly looked up with a pounding heart as he neared the window, propping himself up in it when he reached the top with the hair still clutched in his hand. Staring at him with wide eyes was a young dwarven woman with hair the colour of gold, ruddy cheeks stained with suit from working the forge. But it was not her hair that was long, at least not the hair on her head – it came to halfway down her back. What he held was her beard, braided and beaded in many places. His last thought as he fell backwards out of the window – somehow, and most fortunately, still clutching her hair, no, _beard_ \- was that it was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the finest beard he had seen in all his life.

* * *

  
  
There was little she could do as she waited for the strange young man to wake up other than continue with her work so that was what she did, sharpening a set of shiny daggers as the human lay on the floor, letting out the occasional grunt or mumble. He was tall and most likely a fool but he was the first face she had ever seen outside of her mother in all her life and she had questions she would very much like to ask him whenever he rejoined the world of the living. The groaning coming from him at last reached a crescendo as he rolled over and pushed himself into a sitting position against the tower wall. She paused in her work to look him over, noting the stained clothes and minimal weapons. She could not help but notice the pathetic attempt at a beard at the bottom of his chin, the rest barely more than scraggly stubble. Finally he seemed to regain his faculties and she opened her mouth to speak, to make a demand or introduction or to ask questions – she was not quite sure how she wished to proceed yet – but before she could he blurted out a question she had not expected.  
  
“How did you grow such a beard?”  
  
She stared. Coughed. Then continued to stare. “I beg your pardon?”  
  
“That beard! I have never seen such a beard in all my life.”  
  
“I am a dwarf, dwarven women grow beards.”  
  
“Well yes, I'm hardly simple-”  
  
“Don't say such a thing so confidently when you fell out a window not so long ago.”  
  
The young man had the grace to blush, rubbing his neck with one hand. “I suppose that was not one of the crowning moments of my life but in my defence I certainly did not expect to see what it is that I saw. But to go back to my first point,” he cleared his throat, smiling brightly, “I have known many dwarves on my travels and not even the oldest of the men had such a beard. Some were long to be sure and others were works of art but this...” He trailed off, shaking his head.  
  
“This is what?” Never before in her life had she felt self-conscious. After all it was her and her human mother who had fallen in love with a dwarf. His mouth moved without sound, hands flapping at his sides and for all that time she readied herself for some insult because men, not just the race but males as a whole could be very cruel or so mother had said. “Would you spit it out and be done with it?” She finally demanded angrily taking some satisfaction from the way he jumped.  
  
“Does magnificent sound about right? I'm not a bard, never been much for poetry either, most of the descriptors I know are for cursing the weather I happen to be out in on my travels,” he admitted with a short laugh, smiling down at her and she found herself laughing too because it was a very odd day and she had to wonder if he was real. Sometimes if she worked too long then then the heat of the forge could get to her and cause her to come close to fainting but her mind could not dream such a thing. Clearing her throat, she readied herself to ask serious questions about who he was, where he had come from, what his purpose here was but once again she was interrupted before she had uttered a sound.  
  
“Can you teach me how to grow a beard like yours?”  
  
“Yes – I mean _what_?” A headache was beginning to form, a tightening at her temples.  
  
“I've never managed much beyond this,” one hand rubbed his stubbly efforts with a rueful grin, “but a good huntsman should have a beard shouldn't he?”  
  
When he stared at her the way she had stared at him, she realised that it wasn't a rhetorical question. The idiot expected an answer. “I've never met a huntsman so I could not say but anything would be better than that sorry thing upon your chin. Tell me, did you skin some poor animal and stick it there instead?”  
  
Laughing, the young man shrugged. “The thought is tempting I will not lie.”  
  
“My beard is not one that could be grown by any other – if I cut it, for some reason it does not grow back and the colour darkens,” she explained, hefting a great deal of it out of the way to show him a thin section hidden beneath the mass of beard only three inches long, dark and lifeless.  
  
“Is it magic that does such a thing?”  
  
She shrugged this time, looking away. She could not give up her mother's secret to a stranger.  
  
“I have questions for you to answer now, first being who you are, second why you are here and thirdly what it is that you want.”  
  
“Fair questions and I will answer them.”

* * *

  
  
He was a huntsman, mostly human but he'd heard whispers of having more than a splash of elf blood in him and he worked in the employ of a king who had sent him to scout lands so he might organise grand hunts for other noblemen. Elias was his name and he turned out to be very kind, naïve almost and they spoke long into the night of the lives they had led and what their skills were; he knew little from books but much about the world in general and she could have listened to him for hours were it not for a voice that suddenly called up to them.  
  
“My mother!” She hissed in alarm, shoving the sword and dagger Elias owned into his hands. “Hide! There, in the chest!”  
  
“What, why am I hiding?”  
  
“Don't argue – she has never let me leave this tower, do you think she'll be happy to hear that there's a stranger here?”  
  
“After our – oi!” Grabbing him by the arm as she whispered angrily, she frogmarched him over to an empty chest, lifting the lid. “We are hardly strangers!”  
  
“Stay quiet, do not move, do not make a sound!”  
  
“Wait!”  
  
She slammed the lid shut just as her mother called again, a call that had her scurrying over to the window to let down her braid. Her mother grabbed it as always and with sure movements Rapunzel had hauled her up, lending a hand to help her mother inside with her heavy bags. Her palms were sweating as she cast her eyes about the room to see if there would be any sign that a stranger had been here and her gaze strayed to the old empty chest that seemed so innocuous in the corner. What if he coughed? What if he sneezed? What if he moved or did something foolish? Curse her curiosity he could have been sent by someone to hunt her mother down, his huntsman ruse just that. No, it could not be so. There was an honesty in his eyes and something about his nature that did not lend itself to spinning falsehoods or even maintaining them so she tried to put it from her mind and concentrate on talking to her mother.  
  
Her mother who stood with folded arms, clearly awaiting an answer.  
  
“Sorry mother,” she apologised, shaking her head slightly.  
  
“I asked what took you so long to pull me up but I might as well ask if something is the matter, it's hardly like you to be distracted in such a manner,” her mother ranted, ending with a tut and folded arms as she took a seat on one of the stools Rapunzel used when she was working the forge.  
  
“A simple headache mother, nothing to worry about.”  
  
“Good then. Now sit, there is more work to be done this night.”  
  
It took supreme effort to stop herself from groaning at the thought of what would come next, praying that Elias remained hidden and did not try to do anything reckless in some misguided attempt at chivalry or whatever that human nonsense from the tales happened to be. She did not want to have hairs plucked from her beard again. It left her skin raw and itchy and it burned something fierce when it grew back. More than once, when she'd been younger and had been banned from trimming the beard she had thought of shaving the whole thing off out of spite. But somehow she didn't. Perhaps it was out of love for her mother even if the woman vexed her more and more as the years went by. The cold hands combing through her beard made her flinch. Normally she could push it down, pretend she was far away with her teeth gritted so not a sound would be heard but today she could not, keenly aware of her hidden audience so before her mother could pluck the first hair she leaned back.  
  
“Really Rapunzel-”  
  
“Why are we doing this?” She blurted out before her mother could begin any sort of argument.  
  
“You know why.” Her mother's tone was carefully blank, cold but behind it there lay a serpent coiled and ready to strike.  
  
“I know why you say we stay here but have you not the means now that we could find a better land, a different place that we might live? A land where I can go _outside_?” Rapunzel asked, striving for plaintive only for it to come out as frustration, a growl low in her throat as she spoke the words. She had thought of them before and indeed this argument was a familiar one but the catalyst of Elias, of an outside world...  
  
A sharp pain in her chin brought her back to the present, her hand rushing to touch raw skin as tears blurred her vision, her breath stolen from her. Poisonous triumph lingered on her mother's face as she held a handful of golden hair.  
  
“I'll hear no more of this nonsense you ungrateful girl. I have given up a life to raise you. I travel alone with heavy things to sell so that we will live in safety and in comfort-”  
  
“What comfort? What safety? We live in this tower. Rather _I_ live in this tower!” The slap when it came should not have been such a surprise but it sent her reeling with the taste of blood in her mouth.  
  
“Do not _ever_ speak to me in such a manner again. I am your _mother_ and I have sacrificed all for you now,” her mother reached to the work bench where an elaborate piece made of something dull and cheap for the moment sat, “you will get back to work until I am satisfied or I will make you rue this day.”  
  
Part of her wanted to fight. She was stronger than her mother and knew where all the tools in the room were but the thought made her sick. This was her mother. Her mother was doing what she could for her, wasn't she? Tears filled her eyes again for an entirely different reason and the fight went out of her as she sat at the bench to work, her mother chanting softly as she got out her tools, hair and metal and magic bound together. They, or rather she, worked long into the night before her mother swept off to her room, the door banging shut behind her.  
  
Silence followed, counting the time with the beat of her heart before there was a creak, Elias clambering stiffly from the chest. For a time she had quite forgotten he was hidden there, that he had been witness to it all. His face was ashen with but for pink spots on his cheeks as he crept across the room to kneel by her, tentative hand upon her elbow.  
  
“I am so sorry, I should have done something,” he whispered, bowing his head.  
  
“There was nothing you could have done,” she murmured, turning a bracelet of gold set with diamonds and rubies over in her hands, “my mother is no ordinary woman.”  
  
“She's a witch,” he breathed, sounding aghast.  
  
“That she is but she is my mother. She has told me what men think of those with magic, especially women.” If it had been another day then she might have sounded more passionate in her defence of her mother and the plight of so many with magic.  
  
“No that isn't...” From the corner of her eye she watched his expression twist as he tried to find the words to convey whatever it was he wanted, clearly frustrated with himself. “She's using you, you must see that!” Rapunzel shrugged in response, setting the bracelet down with care before she pushed it away across the workbench. “What she did to you...mothers and fathers strike their children for many reasons, they make their children work, my own did too many times to count but they do not do that.”  
  
“She lost my father, she has no place else to go if she wants to stay by my side.”  
  
“What are you talking about?”  
  
She had never said the words aloud that she could recall, not since she had been very small at least and wondering why her tall, slender, smooth faced mother looked nothing like her. “My mother told me that my father was killed for getting a human woman with child.”  
  
“Impossible!”  
  
“Keep your voice down!” She hissed, balling her fists in anger as she turned to face him, eyes shining bright with anger. “How dare you think it is untrue!”  
  
“You would not look as you do were you truly the child of a dwarf and a human woman! I have seen that in my time – you would be a sight taller, less bearded, less stout. You would not be able to create these things so easily. It would have to be taught.”  
  
“You lie.”  
  
“I speak only the truth, you must believe me!”  
  
“Why must I?” She rose to her feet, making for the window. “You are a stranger, a human stranger who will be up to no good – I should kill you, I am sure my mother would if she knew you were here.”  
  
“Will you?”  
  
She had thought he would sound angry or at least afraid, perhaps incredulous but no, he sounded as she felt, tired, sad and resigned.  
  
“No. No you can go and never return. I will trust you enough to hold your tongue on this.”  
  
“I swear that I will,” he replied quietly and she leaned over the window, lowering her beard through it. He hovered for a moment before seating himself on the window ledge, swinging himself down to grasp her beard and climb down. “Goodnight,” he called quietly as she pulled her hair back up.  
  
She did not sleep that night.

* * *

  
  
Her mother stayed for days, longer than usual as if sensing that something was amiss even though Rapunzel fell back into the normal way of life and if she remained quieter than usual then it was because she wanted to concentrate on her craft. At last their food began to grow low so off she went and Rapunzel took time to enjoy being on her own again.  
  
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair.” It was Elias and though she wanted to talk to him again for companionship other than her mother, her pride would not let her toss her beard out the window for him. Again he called. Again and again and again until she could have hurled something heavy at his head to be rid of him until at sunset he stopped and left. She tried to tell herself she was not disappointed. He should have been long gone by now though if he was on some errand for the king or lord. Perhaps he would be gone the next day.  
  
But when her mother left, he called out to her again. And again. And yet again until at last she peered down through the window to shout at him to be gone and leave her alone.  
  
“I wanted to apologise!” He called up to her when she glared down at him. “I have something to tell you but I could not tell you that night, it was not fair of me to do so and I was scared she would hear me!”  
  
Against her better judgement she lowered her hair and pulled him up.

* * *

  
  
Things fell into a pattern soon after his apology and their conversations began to turn to the legends of their people. Elias ending up speaking of a witch he had heard of who was fabled to have once been a dragon, one of the great greedy beasts that lingered in the foulest places of the world who harboured a great dislike for all other races but most especially dwarves. She'd heard the stories of dragons and dwarves before and understood it well; dragons wanted shining precious things to guard and keep all to themselves and the mountains were full of them but they were not beautiful as they were. Not to dragons at least. It was only when the ores or jewels were mined and worked that they took on their value but dragons could not craft anything from them and the dwarves expected payment for their hard work and so they were forever opposed, dragons invading dwarven vaults until the dwarves stopped living in the caves and beneath mountains, instead roaming far and wide to mine where they could so dragons would not win. Where this story differed was when a dragon attacked killing not only many dwarves but also the ruling family who had set out to find a sorcerer who would punish this creature and drive it back.  
  
“The stories say it is this very place,” Elias intoned, leaning forward to grip the workbench as Rapunzel turned the grinding wheel to sharpen the blade of a dagger she was making, the blade gleaming silver, the hilt inlaid with jewels.  
  
“Where do you hear these stories?”  
  
“From the towns and from books. My father liked to tell me the histories of the lands he had been to so I would know of them when it was my turn to travel in his place. This story is true though.”  
  
“The kingdom fell when the king grew ill.”  
  
“You've never seen the outside of this tower have you?” He challenged and she shook her head.  
  
“You know I have not, never once have I set foot outside.”  
  
“Well if you had then you would see that the outside of this tower is blackened from dragon fire from long ago.”  
  
“Would the land not be ruined still too?”  
  
“Not always. Fire destroys but it can allow for new growth – the forest I have been camping in is still young and full of game.”  
  
“You said that they searched for a sorcerer?” She would rather speak of the story he was spinning than of all the things she could not see for herself.  
  
“They went looking and found an elf woman of incredible power, I think in some versions she's a priestess of the land, worshipping nature, that sort of thing and though she did not kill beasts, she made an exception when she heard of the misery the dragon brought. With her magic she turned the dragon into something less powerful than it was. Not a dwarf for then it would be able to mine and craft so she made it human. The dragon was female so she became a witch for dragons have some magic within them.”  
  
“Isn't that a nice story.”  
  
“It's not a story, it's true!”  
  
They both growled in annoyance at one another before they snorted and laughed. She would miss this when he finally had to move on or when she came fully to her senses and sent him away to spare him pain from her mother.  
  
“Don't believe me then come see for yourself,” he announced cockily, hopping to his feet.  
  
“What?” She croaked, both eyebrows raised as she looked on incredulously.  
  
“We'll fashion a pulley so you can get back up – won't need to go down too far to see the fire marks anyway.”  
  
“There was a fire when the kingdom fell.”  
  
“Dragon fire leaves a very different mark to normal fire, it has a glint to it and this strange shimmer that looks like oil on water.”  
  
“Why are you trying to convince me so very badly?”  
  
“Because I want you to see with your own eyes where you live and where you're being kept all by a witch who has an unnatural lust for gold and jewels.”  
  
“What do you know of that anyway? Other than what you heard and what I have told you.” Elias blushed and coughed, fiddling around with lengths of rope and wood before Rapunzel took them from him, hands on her hips as she looked up at him. When she said his name to make him talk it was in a stern voice that would brook no argument.  
  
“I may have followed her,” he strove for innocence with the words but fell short and then doubled over when she elbowed him hard in the ribs. “What was that for!”  
  
“You fool! What if she saw you?”  
  
“Well she didn't else we would not be having the conversation we're having. Look you gave her two heavy satchels yes?” Rapunzel nodded, fitting together a pulley that was sometimes used if she had unwieldy items to lower down to her mother. “She took only half a satchel with her, the rest she hoards not too far from here in a cave off the beaten track in the side of the mountain.”  
  
“She...she what?”  
  
“She hoards it,” Elias' voice was gentle as he spoke, setting a hand upon Rapunzel's shoulder. “I do not wish to cause you pain, not when you suffer it already,” his hand trailed along her collarbone and up her neck to her jaw where new beard grew from sore pink skin and she shivered, not entirely from the lingering pain in that area, “but I think you deserve to know the truth.”  
  
Her smile was small and determined when she finished putting together the pulley. “Come then, I will see this for myself.”  
  
Propped up on the window ledge Rapunzel kept a tight grip on Elias' left leg as he fastened the pulley in place before he helped her in binding her braid into something more rope-like so it would not snag or get caught. The thought of finally going outside was at once exhilarating and terrifying. A world she had never known, a world utterly forbidden to her. Lowering herself in one long motion, she jumped the last foot, landing heavily amidst her mother's garden full of leafy herbs with pungent aromas as she ran her fingers over their leaves. Elias landed next to her with a smoother motion, a grin of encouragement on his face. Stepping back she tried to control her breathing. It should not feel so overwhelming yet it was and soon she found herself hyperventilating and shaking, dimly aware of Elias rubbing her back, murmuring soothing words and rubbing her back. With shame she realised she was crying, hastily drying her tears as she choked out broken apologies and explanations. She doesn't know how long they crouch there amidst the herbs with her beard and his shirt dampened by her tears, all she knows is that she feels all the better for it once the tears have passed, back on her feet. The cool breeze tugs at her hair and she inhales deeply, soaking in the sounds, the smells and then the sights as Elias steered her around to finally look at the tower she had called home for so many years. It was obviously old from the state of the brickwork that she could see having been poorly repaired at some point in the past too but that was not what drew her eye. Some of the bricks had been melted in the past, misshapen to the point that they resembled candle wax and true enough most of the tower showed a great blast mark of flame, black and shiny in the sunlight. Bravely she stepped forward to touch it, sure it would brush away because she wanted to believe it was some trick still even though years of weather would have removed all traces of it by now. Beneath her palms the stone was unnaturally smooth even though the smoke had looked as though it should have a gritty texture. It was too much and a strangled cry burst forth, startling birds from the trees.  
  
“The treasure, I need to see it.”  
  
Elias nodded grimly and she followed him around the tower, down a rocky path that began to smell faintly of sulphur the further they descended until he swept away a heavy curtain of what appeared leaves woven together. Rapunzel could scarcely believe her eyes: so many of the things she had made in her life stared back at her from a cavern that seemed to go on forever. With trembling hands she reached out to lift a diamond she had cut with such care squeezing it tight before launching it so it fell with, disturbing a pile of other treasures. Turning on her heel she marched back out leaving Elias to drop the heavy cover back down.  
  
“I wish it did not hurt you so but I could not forgive myself if I let you live the life you have been leading,” he told her quietly and when she threw her arms around him, holding him tight he did not protest, stroking her hair and back until she could move again.  
  
“I need to know the truth, I need to know why she has me,” she mumbled into his waist as a calm fell over her.  
  
“She might kill you or imprison you forever!” He sounded aghast and she pulled back so she could look up at his face.  
  
“If you learned your whole life had been a lie, would you not wish to find answers?”  
  
Sighing, he dropped to his knees to put them at eye level, “I would not stop until I was satisfied with the answers I was given. Will you let me help you?”  
  
“You might die too,” and it hurt her to say those words, finding herself clutching him tightly by the shoulders.  
  
“I have played a part in this Rapunzel, I will see this through.”  
  
It was enough to make her smile. Tonight her mother would return and tonight she would have answers. Swept up in the moment she closed the gap between herself and Elias, pressing her lips to his until she realised what she was doing, ready to pull back and apologise until one of his large yet delicate hands cupped her face as he smiled nervously. She nodded when she understood the question in his eyes, leaning in again to kiss him more deeply. If this was to be her last day on this earth then she had someone who, perhaps for the first time in all her life, cared for her, someone she in turn cared and she did not plan to waste such a day.

* * *

  
  
When her mother returned that night Rapunzel was ready to face her having made peace with the fact that she might well suffer great pain. She let her mother in with no delay to a darkened tower, standing with arms folded once her mother was settled, glowering up at the woman with a fury that burned red hot. This was the moment and before her mother – no, not mother, she was no mother and had never been one at all, she was a liar and a witch – could utter a word she was upon her.  
  
“Where did I come from?” She began and to the witch's credit she did not pretend she did not know, instead settling herself in a chair with a degree of nonchalance that sickened Rapunzel.  
  
“So the little dwarf finally breaks free from her tower but cannot resist the allure of her origins hmm? Do you think you are descended from a noble line? You are a commoner girl. A dirty mud grubbing commoner with a smith for a father – I know not what your mother did but it was likely something as plain and dull as your father.” The witch had the gall to smirk as she spoke, stretching casually as she spoke as if they were discussing the weather. “A dwarf pregnancy is no easy feat, something I have always been glad of, longing for the day when you ugly little people die out and your father came running to me for the plant I named you for, desperate to save the life of you and your mother.”  
  
“What did you do to them?” She hated how her voice quavered as she questioned the witch, her hands slick with sweat.  
  
“I did nothing though I dearly wished to – you were what I wanted out of the bargain and so it was you I took.”  
  
“ _Why_? Why lock me in here like this?”  
  
“Oh come now, I know all of you and that huntsman you have begun to dally with,” the smirk turned cruel and hungry – she could see the dragon the witch had once been now as dark eyes glittered with malicious glee. “You did not know that I hid? That I listened and watched? I will admit that you have done well to entrance such a handsome young man what with being more hirsute than a bear, squat and stout and-”  
  
“Enough!” Rapunzel bellowed, advancing on the witch.  
  
“Ah, ah, ah don't be hasty.” Her finger wagged back and forth the way it had when Rapunzel had been a child scolded for some sort of mischief. “We wouldn't want to hurt our dear young paramour now would we?”  
  
“What have you done to him?”  
  
“Nothing. Yet.” The witch let the word linger, tainting the very air around them. “If you ever try to leave this tower again I will hunt him down and subject him to such torments that he will forget any gentle touch or kindness he has ever known.” The threat was very real, Rapunzel knew this, shoulders sagging in defeat. She could risk her own life, not his, not when this was worse than death and so she did the only thing she could think of.  
  
With a smile of grim triumph she raised the dagger she had concealed behind her back to her throat.

* * *

  
  
Outside Elias crept from the cover of the trees, his gut twisting with fear and anxiety. He had heard a sharp cry from the tower and cursed, peering up as he awaited a sign that it was time for his part of the plan. Time slowed to a crawl until he could take no more, calling out the words and hoping he had not left it too long or shouted too soon.  
  
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair.”  
  
A short, sharp exhale of relief accompanied the sight of the beard tumbling from the window in the dark. Twining a hand around it, he felt himself rising with his heart attempting to leap up his throat and out his mouth to the point that he stumbled and fell through the window when he reached it, sprawling flat on his back. That was when he saw it and cried out with dismay; the witch crazed and Rapunzel sprawled on the floor with her beard shorn far shorter coming to only halfway down her chest instead of the countless feet it had been before. She lay deathly still as he clutched her beard tight in his hand and in the light of the forge he could see that it was no longer golden, no longer enchanted. As he tried to move towards her, the witch kicked him in the ribs, his breath leaving him instantly.  
  
“You poisonous little man! Rolling in the grass with that great lump, planning to steal her and her talents to make yourself rich,” she spat at him, crouching low to grip his chin in one hand, tipping it back painfully as he tried to scramble away, mindful of the dagger she held in her other hand.  
  
“I wanted only for her to know the truth,” he gasped receiving a hard smack across the face from her for his trouble.  
  
“I cared for her. I took a dwarf into my arms when they denied me what was mine by rights the same as they did the rest of my kind! Those place were _ours_!”  
  
“Dwarves came from stone same as you! They belonged to those places and learned to mine, if your kind had not been so greedy then maybe you would not be as you are now.”  
  
“Enough of this, I have enough to do for now. I will move it all, find another place, curl up deep in the bowels of the world for a time...” A wild glint was in her eyes that he could not look away from so he did not see Rapunzel move suddenly, rolling to the side to grasp chains and manacles carefully so that they would not rattle and give her away.  
  
Elias' scream was the time to strike and she lunged, clamping a set of manacles around each leg before wrestling the witch to the floor, struggling with her to fasten the other set to her wrists. The manacles and chains were not heavy in fact they were as impossibly fine as gossamer, light too but she had dug deep into the recesses of her mind, all her old, old dreams of dragons and dwarves, battles fought in the deepest reaches of the world to create from rocks and poor metals, the base materials the witch had used her golden beard to enchant, chains that would bind a dragon, holding them fast until they withered and died. The roar that rose up from the witch chilled her to the bone but in this body she had no sharp snapping jaws or fiery breath with which she could lash out. Blood covered the blade the witch still clutched and the grappled for it until Rapunzel seized it and threw it far from where it could do any damage before she dragged Elias to a corner of the room safe from the witch. Not that she seemed in any mind to do much beyond howling and screaming, cursing Rapunzel, Elias, all the other races and the elf who had done this to her.  
  
“Rapunzel?” Elias groaned, skin cold and clammy as she tried to hush him, tried to staunch the bleeding for the witch's blade had been wickedly sharp, cutting off Elias' left hand. “You're free,” he croaked brokenly, smiling as she started to weep.  
  
“Thank you,” she whispered, bending her head to touch his for a moment as ripped fabric free of her tunic to fashion into a tourniquet. “Stay with me Elias, don't disappear now. Not now.”  
  
“You're free,” he wheezed not even moaning in pain when she pulled the tourniquet tight about his arm, her fingers feeling too thick and clumsy for the work.  
  
“Elias!” It was a desperate plea as she dragged him further across the room trying to fashion something that might help but all her skills lay in metal and stones from the earth, not in healing. In frustration she grabbed a block of metal, hammering at it wildly with absolutely no finesse, her world narrowed down only to the tools in her hands and the coughing and sporadic breathing of Elias.  
  
“There...there is a town I passed through,” he began quietly as she kept working on what she was not sure, “I sh-should have said before,” he swallowed painfully as he continued even as she tried to shush him so he might save his strength so he might survive until she could think straight. “A dwarf smith and his wife, rap'nzel, witch,” a particularly ragged choking noise followed the words as she sobbed into her hands and the metal she held in them.  
  
When her tears hit the metal it began to glow as her hair had before with the metal taking on the shape of a hand, of the same size as the hand Elias had lost. Throwing herself from her seat she raced to the forge where she held the end over the flames until it began to glow. It was now or never. Pressing Elias to the floor with a knee across his chest she took his left arm with one hand, steadied herself and pressed the glowing end of the metal to the ragged stump of his wrist, fighting as he arched his back wildly, howling and kicking his legs in a vain attempt to escape the pain. She cried out apologies as she held him down, the last burst of strength leaving him until his tears were silent and his body limp as she ripped her tunic again now that she no longer had to hold his arm in place, carefully binding hand and arm. His breath sounded like a death rattle now, caught at the back of his throat as she held him in her arms, waiting to see if her insane idea had done anything.  
  
“I never got to say thank you,” she admitted, her tears having ceased for a moment. “For opening my eyes, for helping me. For giving me a reason to want to make all the beautiful things in the world. For just being you. Honest, noble and good and a fool.” Bending down she kissed his clammy forehead, his cold lips and held him tight for however long it would take for him to slip beyond her grasp and into whatever awaited them at the moment of death. Suddenly he gasped, hacking and choking, fighting her hold until he she let go, moving to clutch his good hand tightly.  
  
“Rapunzel?”  
  
“Yes, yes it's me, I'm here.”  
  
“I'm alive?” Her throat was too tight to allow her to speak so she nodded instead, squeezing his hand as she started to cry again. He raised his left hand to wipe away her tears before he jerked back, staring at it in shock and awe. “Wha- did you? _How_?”  
  
“I don't know,” and it was true, she did not know how the lump of base ore she had held had become a hand of silver and at that moment she did not care either.  
  
He laughed brightly with a healthy flush of colour in his cheeks, pushing himself up with his elbows to kiss her. “Did I ever tell you that you are magnificent?” She laughed in kind and pushed him back to kiss him more thoroughly, giddy with sweet relief.

* * *

  
  
They nailed the length of her beard to the wall when he was well enough to move again, supported heavily by Rapunzel, leaving it in plain sight of the witch who they bound more tightly to the wall, able to stare out but unable to move.  
  
“You would have kept me here to the end of my days,” Rapunzel said as she and Elias made their way to the window to depart and never return, “so now you can have a taste of it yourself.”  
  
It was more difficult to climb down with Elias and his still healing wound and Rapunzel feeling less secure now that the beard was no longer attached to her but they managed it, shouldering a pack of supplies each as they stared out at the land before them, holding hands. The town wasn't too far and would have a doctor who could help check Elias' wound and more importantly housed Rapunzel's true parents, long overdue meeting their daughter. With smiles on their faces they set off into the sunset leaving the shadow of the tower far behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to blame Dragon Age, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings for my love of dwarves. Seeing The Hobbit definitely spurred me on to write this.


End file.
